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The PRISM Network: Companies
The PRISM Network is a massive conglomerate of media, tech, and surveillance companies. Collectively they produce, distribute, and control the news, social media, advertisement, entertainment, and information technology industries of Acheron Rho. This page collects brief descriptions, logos, and other information about every PRISM Network company is currently detailed. Full pages are linked for subsidiaries with longer entries. Please reach out to members of the PRISM Network if you have an idea for an additional subsidiary. PRISM is assumed to have significantly more subsidiaries and brands than are listed here. Tech Companies A list of PRISM’s information technology, internet, and infrastructure companies. A PRISM company fits in this definition if its main purpose is to provide elements of the digital infrastructure that make up significant parts of modern life. Social media, video games, ebooks and other media producers can be found in the Media Companies section. A company with a website is not a tech company. Constant c PRISM's data service provider, covering interstellar and planetside internet services. Historically, Constant c has provided inter-system internet for roughly half of the sector. Its main competitor is the Velan L.I.N.E.S. service. PLEBs System (PRISM Local Exchange Beacon satellite) The PLEBs system is built on top of pre-Scream technology originally reactivated by Constant c. The PLEBs system interfaces regularly with the Velan Ascendancy’s LINES communication system, and the Local Exchange System is operated equally between the two organizations. * PLEBs Data Usage Research Partnerships: PRISM allows some researchers access to the metadata logs for the exchange system, so that research can be conducted on data usage and other interesting technical information can be analyzed and correlated by experts. Seguridad di Sei Petali (Six Petals Security or SSP) PRISM’s premier digital security and policy compliance division, Seguridad di Sei Petali is responsible for many of PRISM’s consumer focused security and estate-surveillance products. Additionally, PRISM’s Network Contract Compliance division is housed within SSP and handles discovery and client notifications surrounding End User License Agreement breeches. * SSP Docutection™ for information security: The Docutection product line is designed to determine which users in an organization have the right to view which documents. It also tracks the transmission of information internally and prevents most accidental or intentional leaks. For example, Docutection will notify managers and prevent the information transfer if employees attempt to email a third party sensitive information. * SSP Docutection™ for document rights management: The documents rights management system comes with most of the features of Docutection for information security, but it focuses on managing documents that have special requirements. This is most common when certain information needs to be retained for a specific number of years, or much be destroyed after thirty days for legal reasons. Docutection includes a very fine-grained feature that allows organizations to control exactly which documentation each user is allowed to access. * SSP Full Drive Erasure™: SSP Full Drive Erasure™ is a very, very thorough program designed to render a data storage system completely blank beyond advanced data reconstruction methods. The system boasts of passing third party tests by Triangulum and Trilliant data scientists, and even PRISM can’t help you get your data back if you have erased it with SSP Full Drive Erasure™. That’s the point. S.A.M.I. SAMI is one of PRISM’s most popular pieces of hardware. The Subdermal Augmented Media Interface was originally only intended for a high end AR implant, but the trial version that used physical glasses and haptic gloves was so popular that SAMI expanded into a full scale product line. * PRISMfit Health Tracker: PRISMfit is a popular health app that takes advantage of the SAMI implant in unique ways. Searchlight PRISM’s ad-funded public search engine is the most used search algorithm in Acheron Rho. The Searchlight team is notoriously private and rarely communicates with the public except via company approved blog posts. PRISM reporters sometimes make their name getting unapproved statements from the Searchlight team. Misc. Tech Products These haven’t been attached to a subsidiary yet. If you’ve got a good idea for a company name or logo, let us know. * PRISM Ad Block: A paid subscription-based system that adjusts the user’s AR screen (glasses, goggles, contacts, or cybereyes) to filter out the visual chaos of PRISM advertising. * Swipe-to-Send™: A very standard software interaction that allows users to send content to another user by visually swiping the content towards the recipient’s position in the room. * SPECTRA Task Management™: A business and employee management system designed to enable collaboration across large teams. In abstract, it is a very advanced to do list built to support entire organizations. * API for automated ACRE re-supply orders: This API allows programs to interface with ACRE’s supply ordering system. It enables features like “order more flouride when we have X amount left.” Some developers have used the API to create programs that analyze the effectiveness and cost-balance of using specific ACRE supply chains. News Networks These are the companies that form the landscape of journalistic media available to the public of Acheron Rho. The news landscape operates in cycles of information and opinion and generally runs the spectrum from highly respected investigative outfits to conspiracy-minded tirades pretending to carry the real truth. On the whole most PRISM journalists act towards what they believe is society’s best interest and present the truth as they understand it. PRISM News Network (PNN) PRISM's primary main-brand visual and print news channel is divided into the following channels: * Ruby Red - General news in the sector * Jasper Orange - Sports and other competitive events such as psiball * Citrine Yellow - Culture, religion, and art, also shows new consumable products * Emerald Green - Economy and business * Sapphire Blue - Science and technology * Amethyst Indigo - Imperial broadcasts such as public addresses and emergencies * Garnet Magenta - Noble house news, events, and gossip PRISM Public Radio PPR is a well respected public radio association that collects local planetary stations into a series of audio channels that provide high quality journalistic content focused on cultural, social, and public affairs to everyone free of charge. PRISM Radio Network PRN is a multi-channel platform that offers space for music, entertainment, and live podcast channels of every kind. The Talon Herald The Talon Herald is the paper of record, one of the oldest and most respected investigative journalism papers in the Sector. It has a long-standing rivalry with The Prime Daily. The Prime Daily The Prime Daily is perhaps the oldest newspaper in the sector and has existed in various states of success since the arrival of humanity in Acheron Rho. Among the nobility, its age and central location makes it somewhat more respectable than the Talon Herald, even though the papers are of similar quality. Imperio PRISM's Imperio magazine is one of the most popular culture magazines among the socialites of Imperial High Society. Imperial Talk TV Imperial Talk TV is popular among members of the major houses and focuses on Imperial-centric celebrity coverage and discussions on current events. Sparrow’s Flight Economic Network The Sparrow’s Flight Economic Network covers the HEX stock exchange, and offers economic analysis of the latest events. It’s focused on freemen and business specialists, and features regular appearances from economic experts and successful rich people. Eye on the Empire with Ehsan Azar Ehsan Azar is a charismatic conspiracy theorist with entertainingly furious tirades about the “real” events occurring in the Empire. Pursuing a mission of “Keeping the Empire Honest,” Ehsan Azar is an extreme patriot who often devolves into utterly nonsensical theories about rogue elements within the nobility, corporate offices, and religious institutions. He makes a killing off of nutritional supplements, workout aides, and synth repellant. ANNE (Aquilan News Network Exchange) (Aquilan-Run) Before the conflict between ACRE and House Aquila, ANNE was a news channel for Aquilan civilians and legionnaires serving off-planet. It featured media produced entirely by House Aquila, and was broadcast sector-wide through PRISM distribution systems. During and After the Battle of Diomikato (3200), the Aquilan Resistance began to broadcast ANNE through homemade and antique systems. It is currently transferred off world by manual courier, usually by Aquilan military vessels or Pyxis Echoes. Acheron Rhoads Corp. (“Independent” Publisher) Acheron Rhoads Corp. was originally an Echonian physical infrastructure and construction company based in Peregrin. The firm survived the closure of the glacial city’s mines by heavily investing in a synthetic workforce and expanding into the construction market across the whole planet. A few of Echo’s significant dams and bridges were built by Acheron Rhoads Corp before the War Against the Artificial. After the implementation of War Plan Purple and the post-synth general collapse of the Echonian economy, Acheron Rhoads Corp was acquired by Reflections Venture Capital. Shortly afterwards one employee struck upon an inspired idea to create a free blogging platform where people could write down what they saw in their neighborhoods and express how life changed when the synths went away. After the initial success of RhoFeed, Acheron Rhoads Corp changed industries and became an independent publisher for various small scale, distributed media ventures. RhoFeed “Your Voice, Your Story: RhoFeed” “Join us to hear the truth about why Crux riot police are in your neighborhood but also read about Quarkittens and their strict fish diets on some backwater planet or a recipe for famous Komodopede Meatpie. You have the information, you blog it - we present it uncensored and unbiased, for the entire Sector to read! Make yourself heard and find the voices YOU want to hear from - sign up and join millions of bloggers today!” - A clip from RhoFeed’s home page. RhoFeed is the most popular independent blogging site in Acheron Rho. Anyone with a name and an email can set up a blog (password optional) and talk about whatever strikes their fancy with little to no censorship at all. The site’s millions of bloggers write about what’s on their minds and their articles are automatically sorted into discovery categories like travel and news. RhoFeed’s blogging platform is especially popular among the radical. With a low barrier to entry and lack of censorship, the site is one of the better ways to broadcast free thought in a suppressed sector. Of course, RhoFeed escapes any liability for its user’s thoughts by letting bloggers own their own writings. (A complicated technicality keeps 40% of blogs’ ad revenue in RhoFeed’s pocket despite the work not being theirs in any meaningful legal sense.) RhoFeed appears independent even after an evening’s scrutiny because its owner, Acheron Rhoads Corp, is separated from PRISM by several layers of holding companies and venture capital firms. That distance from the main Network makes RhoFeed’s corporate culture rather different from things at most news outfits, and more disillusioned consumers have responded to that by supporting the blogging platform. It markets itself as the anti-PRISM news site and PRISM’s main office seems content with RhoFeed’s anti-corp rhetoric. The ad money is good. The bloggers aren’t obviously criminal, and PRISM Analytics is getting good data on dissidents that use the site. As long as things don’t get too extreme, PRISM is more than happy to benefit from brands that attack their too-smoothe corporate culture. All told, the site’s top ten categories are animals, astrology, politics, cooking, music, psiball, celebrities, art, religion, and history. * RhoFeed Originals: In addition to its unsponsored blogging platform, RhoFeed dedicates a significant portion of its resources to buying the contracts of its most popular creators from the nobles who currently own them (technically speaking, this is a transferable lifetime rental of the indenture contract in question). RhoFeed organizes these creators into a professional staff of writers, vlog-makers, and journalists. Its journalism program is award-winning, but RhoFeed Originals is most known for its quizzes, list articles, and other light-hearted media content. Media Companies The PRISM Network’s media companies cover the full spectrum of human creativity from movies to music to photography to full time live streamers. Most popular social media will be found in this category. If you’ve heard of or thought of a company that produces entertainment, PRISM probably has something like that or publishes for a company like that. This list is not exhaustive by any means. Lumen Media Lumen Media is the sub-conglomerate that controls and produces the majority of the PRISM Network's social media services. It has several subsidiaries that are significant enough to be presented as their own company, including Lumen Maps, Spacebook, and -------.* Here are a few of Lumen Media’s other subsidiaries. * Phase.tv - live streaming content * PRISM YARD - a children friendly education and social media platform * Telescope - Telescope is a popular site for sharing 120 character short media posts. "I'll scope about it later." * YourWatch™: A somewhat popular neighborhood watch app designed to distract nosy neighbors and help well intentioned civilians help deter crime. YourWatch has been steadily updated and gamified to the point that few remember that it was originally built to help citizens report their neighbors for fomenting rebellion against the state. *We are still naming PRISM's user-generated video platform. Lumen Media Social Media Research Partnerships: This program offers researchers access to Lumen Media’s collection of social media data so that demographic and large scale population research is possible. Sometimes this program includes running social experiments on the general public. Lumen Maps Lumen Maps is an incredibly thorough mapping system that provides area maps detailed enough to support automatic ground and air vehicles. Maps provides searchable, easily accessible restaurant, fuel supply, grocery, entertainment, and retail listings to the public free of charge, but local businesses find that purchasing an accurate listing is essential to maintaining foot traffic and customer flow for their business. * Travel Times with Traffic: An extremely popular feature of Lumen Maps that provides driving, walking, or public transit directions to any location in a given region with travel times provided. * Explore: More commonly known as Lumen Maps Restaurant and Pub Lookup, Explore is a feature that allows local businesses to pay to have their location, hours, services, and website listed on the most popular interactive map in the sector. It has become as necessary for foot traffic as paying to have your number in the phone book. Spacebook PRISM's service for posting and sharing personal information. Spacebook is large enough to have its own subsidiaries and it operates one of the largest self-contained online advertising systems in Acheron Rho. * Spark - The most popular online dating app in Acheron Rho. Make sure to swipe right on your favorite local faces. Spacebook bought Spark two or three years after the app’s creation. Generated Video Platform* PRISM’s service for uploading user-created video and interacting with creator communities. ----- is the largest online video platform in the sector. *We are still naming PRISM's user-generated video platform. Full Spectrum Marketing One of the more ever-present PRISM companies, Full Spectrum Marketing is PRISM’s in-house advertising agency and network. Unlikely many purely creative and logistical ad agencies, Full Spectrum Marketing includes significant hardware divisions that manufacture and research the most cutting edge advertising technology in the sector. A.P.S.A. - one of the most recognized features in the Sector, Aware Public Service Adverts are highly interactive holographic advertisements designed to interact with the passerby. Viola - one of FSM’s more low-key marketing installations, Viola is a holographic VI with the appearance of an old lady. Always ready to serve guests a plate of fresh cookies or provide a comforting presence, Viola is placed in relaxing settings such as comfortable houses where passersby can stop and rest a while. Viola’s unassuming appearance was designed after generations of testing to be incredibly approachable, capable of eliciting secrets people never thought they’d tell anyone else. She is based off of one’s teachers, relatives, or other motherly figures and is optimized for the highest amount of secrets revealed per encounter. Prismatic Parks PRISM's own brand of amusement park, these can be found in and system where PRISM has a foothold. A combination of all PRISM entertainment brands, each park is specifically created for each system but retains major brands across all parks. Attractions have names like “The Rainbow Road,” and “The Phase Changer.” Chromatic Multimedia PRISM's headline entertainment division is divided into the following subsidiaries: * Chromatic Studios - Produces movies and television. ** Bear-ey Good™ Crime Drama Archive: A collection of tv dramas that is especially popular on Hiera. * Chromatic Interactive - Game development and production. * Pitch Music Group - Music development and production. Ten Blessings Network (High Church-Affiliate) The Ten Blessings Network is a popular set of tv channels promoting the views of the High Church of Messiah-as-Emperox and it features televangelists, religious movies, and other God-channel content. ReThinker’s Network (CHR-Affiliate) The ReThinker’s Network is the Church of Humanity Repentant’s answer to the Ten Blessings Network. It features wholesome religious programming, philosophical debates, children’s content, and other televangelistic materials. One of its most famous preachers is Jeremiah Salt. Holy Meditations (High Church-Affiliate) Holy Meditations is a user-generated video hosting service that allows creators to share online videos with their broader religious community. It is essentially a religiously themed copy of ------*, the most popular user-generated video site. Holy Meditations is themed for believers and members of the High Church of Messiah-as-Emperox, and it features significantly more content made by noble creators than Graceful Beatitudes. *We are still naming PRISM's user-generated video platform. Graceful Beatitudes (CHR-Affiliate) Graceful Beatitudes is a user-generated video hosting service that allows creators to share online videos with their broader religious community. It is essentially a religiously themed copy of ------*, the most popular user-generated video site. Graceful Beatitudes is themed for members of the Church of Humanity, Repentant and it features more academically themed content than Holy Meditations. *We are still naming PRISM's user-generated video platform. Floodlight Sports Network Floodlight Sports Network focuses on sports coverage of all kinds, especially on sports and competitive events created by the PRISM Network. Sapphire Science Sapphire Science is one of PRISM’s popular educational companies. It focuses on updating education for the thirty-third century with programs, educational games, and textbook resources. As the name suggests, Sapphire Science emphasizes high quality scientific education. * EduLab™: Is Sapphire Science’s most used textbook companion program. EduLab is a platform that enable students to complete math, biology, physics, engineering, and computer science homework digitally. It provides a comprehensive suite of tools for educators and is generally well regarded. Halcyon Eye Textbooks Halcyon Eye Textbooks is one of PRISM’s several ebook publishers that focus on textbook production and distribution. Halcyon Eye originally focused on textbooks written by the serf “assistants” of famous scientists but it has since responded to market pressure by expanding its funding for noble-produced content. Ibis Scientific Journals Ibis Scientific Journals is a bulk publisher of electronically available scientific publications. It collects the majority of official scientific publications into a single subscription service, vastly reducing the complexity for universities and scientists seeking to subscribe to all of the peer reviewed publications in multiple fields. X-Ray X-Ray is the most well known source of adult content in Acheron Rho. It features many popular types of content and supports a number of notable stars like Randy Talladega. UV UV is one of the few PRISM channels that feature live “Ultra-Violent” content. UV features often include extreme sports, like the Blackout Ring, and sometimes contain death on-screen. The GLOWIES Acheron Rho’s premier awards show, the GLOWIES are held yearly. Achieving this award is the pinnacle of fame. Intelligence & Data Analysis Companies These companies vary significantly in range and style from small private detective joints to polished advertising consultants to government-contracted spy agencies. What unifies them is how they draw on and continue the training and expertise of the former secret police who founded, and sometimes still run, the PRISM Network. There are analysts who only work their day job, providing advice to advertisers or helping nobles set up surveillance systems, but members of PRISM's intelligence community tend to be called "analysts" for a reason. Even when PRISM's analysts are undercover as reporters or other employees, most of PRISM's intelligence community is truthfully employed by the companies below. PRISM Analytics PRISM Analytics is the Network’s premier data analysis company, and it regularly interacts with almost every business seeking to advertise in Acheron Rho. PRISM Analytics provides the demographic, cultural, and interest analysis that demonstrates the likely effectiveness of any given marketing campaign. This is one of the backbones of PRISM’s market dominance in the advertising sphere, and it provides the majority of the revenue for all of PRISM’s ad funded businesses. Not at all coincidentally, PRISM Analytics diverts a significant, if small, fraction of all ad revenue into the questionably recorded budgets of PRISM’s other intelligence firms. All of PRISM’s surveillance and intelligence gathering firms ultimately connect back to PRISM Analytics and its sister organization, PRISM Special Intelligence. * Forget™: PRISM’s standard serf surveillance package offers an optional upgrade in which noble and corporate clients may pay an individually negotiated price to ensure that information about the activity of the noble’s serfs is not accessed by journalists or made available on the market. Most customers purchase the standard package that ensures that their serfs’ activities are not made available for auction unless there is a late payment or other financial disruption. * PRISM Mass-Data Archive: PRISM Analytics and its subsidiaries control and maintain the MDA. The largest repository of Big Data in the sector, the MDA is occasionally opened to researchers and visiting security specialists. It is one of the most secure data centers in Acheron Rho, even though the data set is so huge that proprietary indexing technology is necessary to make the data useful. * PRISM Local Maps & Transit Meta-Data: PRISM Analytics collects anonymized (and not-so-anonymized) location data from Lumen Maps. This is regularly provided to research universities through standard collaboration agreements. Both the researchers and PRISM benefit from better understanding of traffic patterns and the effect of various app features on those patterns. PRISM Special Intelligence (PSI) If Analysts gather the Echonian company’s pool of information, then PRISM Special Intelligence is the Network’s striking arm. As the operations branch of PRISM’s network of spies for hire, PSI agents act to ensure the success of PRISM and its clients. PSI special agents are tactically trained field operatives skilled in a number of operating conditions, though they are most respected for their performance during high stakes infiltration, exfiltration, and deep cover missions. PRISM Analysts capable of becoming a PSI Special Agent are fairly rare, so PRISM deploys PSI sparingly and the nobility knowingly interacted with Special Agents most often during the War Against the Artificial. PSI develops on the ground contacts, meets with potential moles, and in general operates as an advanced security apparatus for hire. HardLight Analytics In contrast with PRISM Analytics which supports PRISM’s intelligence subsidiaries through its marketing business, HardLight Analytics is more of government contract business. It offers electronic security, counterintelligence consulting, mass surveillance of planetary populations, and highly specialized technical support for irregular operations. Several Imperial institutions routinely order HardLight Analytics counterintelligence reports and use that information to identify problem areas or threats and evaluate their best response. Historically, when Imperial and House special ops teams go into action, they regularly chose to bring along support staff from HardLight Analytics. HLA Analysts compete with Serpens-trained psychics and Velan Musir with their services, so PRISM provides them access to a scope of data, surveillance, and infiltration tools that PRISM normally prefers to conceal from the public. Teams with HLA support operate with ongoing location tagging of civilians and uncautious targets, city-wide traffic rerouting normally reserved for emergency vehicles, and advanced surveillance techniques that take advantage of the pervasive presence of PRISM devices. HLA can also provide access to the PSI profiles on local figures, providing normally hidden looks into their relationships, habits, and vices alongside cultural information about how best to use said information. * HLA Serf-Tracking: HardLight Analytics’ comprehensive surveillance package for nobles who want to know what their serfs are doing at all times. The standard package comes with selective automated alerts, permissions for which serf is allowed to go where, access codes for doors, and all kinds of extremely invasive security protocols. Most nobles choose to pay PRISM to Forget™ anything HLA’s algorithms might have seen while monitoring their serfs. * HLA LightWall™ Anti-Virus Protection: HLA LightWall is the gold standard for anti-virus software in the general consumer market, though it does not actually hold up as well as the more advanced government-grade security packages on offer for HLA’s most secretive clients. * HLA Reference and Citation Search: HardLight Analytics provides a tool that skims through legal and academic databases to look for citations, president, and other examples of existing work. It was originally built to make life much easier for PRISM’s legal department. * HLA Omni-Variable Data Collection and Analysis Tool (OVD CAT): The OVD CAT is a standard piece of equipment in many labs and forensics units. It contains a wide variety of sensors that pick up data from the environment and provide basic analysis. For example, its AR display can provide the salinity of water or highlight a muddy footprint without touching either substance. White Light While Light is a subsidiary of Full Spectrum Marketing and uses PRISM Analytics’ ad targeting software to harvest data to create its product. White Light is a service offered to family members of deceased social media users. PRISM collects the entire library of user interactions, media preferences, geographical tagging, and preferences of the deceased family member - every element of a person’s digital life is aggregated by White Light and used to manufacture a Virtual Intelligence as life-like and close to the deceased loved one as possible. The process has grown even more reliable with the advent of S.A.M.I. implants collecting physical movement impulses for its gesture interface system. The company was originally meant to support the creation of synthetic mimics of dead loved ones and the fidelity of the VIs has dropped somewhat with their restriction to vocal and holographic media. White Light VIs can be owned privately, if the user can afford a portal system capable of sustaining the VI. Most, however, must visit a White Light facility to access their personal data and rent a private room to speak with their VI. All Lumen Media users and PRISM customers are enrolled in the White Light program automatically, and must manually opt-out if they so desire. Miscellaneous Companies These companies don't quite fit into PRISM's typical corporate umbrellas. PRISM Accounting PRISM Accounting is exactly what it says on the tin. Based in the city of Sparrow, PRISM Accounting is one of the central hubs that organizes all of PRISM’s subsidiaries into a working network. Luminary Ventures (Holding Company) A very old financial firm created by the early members of PRISM as a way to manage and legitimize the company’s initial wealth and funding. There is a long-running rumor that the Eridanii noble who sponsored the company may have been a legal fabrication assembled from a cover identity, numerous favors, and an extraordinary series of bribes. It is common knowledge that the Eridanii family on Luminary’s board invented the rumor to give themselves a small claim on history. Luminary Ventures is owned directly by PRISM Accounting. Sparrow’s Wing Investments (Holding Company) Sparrow’s Wing Investments is a prominent Echonian company that is nominally independent and that invests in other small firms and growing companies. It often acquires partial control of new PRISM subsidiaries by helping them make up some of the additional funding that can’t be had directly through Accounting. Sparrow’s Wing Investments largest single owner is Luminary Ventures, though the two financial firms deliberately keep the amount of control below 30% to help disguise the nature of their relationship. Reflections Venture Capital (Appears Independent) Reflections Venture Capital is an association of wealthy and private Echonian individuals who specialize in rehabilitating failing companies that might still be worth the effort. It rose to prominence on Echo as the economy crumbled overnight following the three-day purge of all synthetics in Eriopei. Suddenly everyone needed help getting back on their feet, and Reflections Venture Capital proved to be the right firm for the job. It also proved to be an excellent opportunity for the owners of Sparrow’s Wing Investments to quietly funnel credits into the turn-around firm, allowing PRISM to solidify its hold on all manner of firms that might have previously escaped notice. Category:The Prism Network Category:The PRISM Network Products